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Against the Tide of Years
|Next_book = }} This is the second book of a trilogy about events that take place when Nantucket Island is transported back in time to 1250 BCE. The Republic of Nantucket enters into an alliance with Akkadia (Babylon), the Island is attacked by Tartessos, first steps are undertaken to colonize eastern South America and Peter Girenas departs on his expedition to survey North America. Walker subdues Achaea May, 2 AE William Walker and his followers have reached Achaea (Ancient Greece) following Walker's defeat in the Alban War. Within weeks Walker demonstrates cannon to Agamemnon, the High King, and is showered with land and riches. Walker introduces the Roman alphabet. Alice Hong sets up sanitation and modern looms. Bill Cuddy sets up lathes and forges. March, 3 AE Walker pressures John Martins into working on steel production and talks to a local architect about building a dam, a watermill, a blast furnace and outbuildings for a workforce. Odikweos, King of Ithaka of the Western Isles, is walking through Mycenae when he hears a swordfight. He finds Walker and his armsmen fighting assasins. Odikweos assists, and earns a night at Walker's strange new house. June-July, 4 AE Agamemnon inspects ships that Walker is building, and a new invention, a windmill. The ships are novel, and Walker offers a ride. As they depart, Agamemnon notices men with 'sticks' in lines in the distance. Walker explains it as an idea he is trying with 'small cannon' and Agamemnon loses interest. Odikweos and Walker land ahead of the main Greek invasion of Sicily. Walker has 400 musketeers and six cannon, and smashes 4,000 Sicilians. Walker is using Agamemnon's existing war plan to gain control of his own source of materials. Ch.5 November, 6 AE Walker entertains Bill Cuddy and explains some of the things he is doing, now that he can access Sicily's minerals. He is then entertained by the psychotic Alice Hong and her captive Sicilians. June, 7 AE Odikweos returns from Sicily and admires the changes made in Achaea by Walker. They discuss the next attempt at conquest- Troy and the Hittite empire. Ch.6 May, 8 AE Walker gives a pep talk to Alice, who seems to be growing a conscience. Walker points out that she destroys in ones and twos, but he had two thousand crucified in Macedonia alone. She fears fate, which gives him an idea. Ch.11 September, 9 AE Walker stages a palace revolution against Agamemnon Ch.16 Nantucket June, 4 AE Martha and Jared Cofflin cycle to where Ron Leaton is building a Bessemer conversion plant, producing steel from molten iron. The steel is poured into moulds to make eight-inch Dahlgren cannon, for use in the new Coast Guard frigate ships. March, 8 AE Marian Alston is on her way to a Council meeting and has to deal with an escaped moa, a giant New Zealand bird farmed by the Nantucketters since year 2. The Council discuss the problems of immigration; they want to assimilate the locals, not the other way around. Marian thinks she has an answer, in that intelligence reports suggest Walker cannot be stopped without a war. Lieutenant Vicki Cofflin and Ron Leaton trial an engine intended to go into Emancipator, the first of a fleet of airships. A tethered balloon hovers over the airfield, and an ultralight takes off. She jokes about being on the cutting edge of technology and is taken seriously. Ch.1 April, 8 AE Ian Arnstein, Councillor for Foreign Affairs, reads through reports from Alba. He collects Doreen, who is learning Akkadian, the language of local Babylon. They take their son down to the docks, and stop to watch a Tartessan ship. August, 8 AE Swindapa still suffers nightmares of her treatment by the Iraiina in 1 AE. Vicki Cofflin admires RNAS Emancipator before the test flight. Jared Cofflin complains about paperwork before walking over to Coast Guard HQ with his family for a working lunch cooked by Marian. Marian explains the Island's future strategy, then Jared entertains the group with the plans of a certain Pete Girenas on the mainland. Ch.3 September, 8 AE Major Kenneth and Captain Kathy Holland are interrupted in a training day at Camp Grant, Long Island, by a visit from Commodore Alston and Lt.Commander Swindapa. Marian inspects troops, asks questions, then orders Kenneth to hand Camp Grant over to a successor when he takes his newly formed batallion off to the Middle East. Ch.4 October, 8 AE Swindapa and Marian dance and sing a 'soul' down for a new clipper ship under construction. Dr Henry Coleman introduces Justin Clemens to Jared Cofflin. Clemens has just identified cowpox in some Alban immigrants. They worry that it is a precursor to smallpox, and discuss vaccination using cowpox. Clemens has gone through a messy divorce, and is looking for a way off Nantucket... Ian and Doreen admire the half-constructed new clipper. Ian is amazed at the speed of build compared to the first. Marian tells him she uses mass production and prefabricated parts, as did the Venetians to build Galleys. Ch.5 November, 8 AE The Marine Expeditionary Force sets sail after a ceremony led by Prelate Gomez. Ch.6 December, 8 AE Marian Alston is Captain aboard clipper frigate Joshua Chamberlain, two days out from Barbados, in flotilla with troop ship Eagle, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and another clipper, Abraham Lincoln. The flotilla exercises with the new Dahlgrens. They exchange news with a Nantucket trader attracted by the gunfire. Ch.6 January, 9 AE The Expeditionary Force lands at Mauritius Base to collect fresh water and timber, and is given a very sloppy reception by the incompetent Base Commander. Marian demotes him and gives her men some exercise putting the Base to rights, rewarding them with a short holiday. Ch.7 March, 9 AE Jared Cofflin is very happy with the Babylon treaty. He checks Town Meeting proposals, noting proposals for day-care inspectors, coal imports, and a new base at the site of Buenos Aires. He is amused that one of the supporters of the Girenas expedition is one of the worst thorns in his flesh and an enemy of Pete Girenas. Ch.9 Kar-Duniash February, 9 AE King Shagarakti-Shuriash arrives at Ur. He is taken to the dockyard to see the gifts the Nantukhtar, the Eagle People, have brought. The king is impressed by the identically-dressed Marines (half of them women), their weapons, and a pair of binoculars. He discusses implications with his son Kashtiliash and courtiers. They discuss the 'prophecies' the Nantukhtar have brought of the destruction of Babylon by the Assyrians, which worries them already. Ch.8 March, 9 AE Jared Cofflin is pleased with the treaty that Ian Arnstein has signed with the Babylonians. Ch.9 April, 9 AE Nantucket-bound, Marian's flotilla is caught off South Africa by a storm. Dr Clemens shows Kathryn Hollard the results of a dysentery epidemic and begs for staff to prepare and give rehydration solution. She takes him to Ian Arnstein as the solution to his problem - King Shuriash has gifted the Islanders two hundred slaves. Ian can free them, and put them to useful work at the hospital. Ch.10 Prince Kashtiliash is on a lion hunt with his new allies, and is greatly impressed both by them and their weapons, and by Kathryn. Ch.11 Marian's ship, though badly damaged, stays afloat long enough to reach what-will-be Durban Ch.11,12 May, 9 AE Prince Kashtiliash arrives at the Nantukhtar base at Ur and is in turn astonished and appalled by what he finds - kiln-fired brick walls, cannon, steamboats and road trains, sewers everyone uses, and his father's slaves freed and being taught to read and write. Ch.11 Ken Hollard is passed a message that the Assyrians and Elamites are attacking Kar-Duniash. He alerts Katheryn. Vicky Cofflin is reassembling RNAS Emancipator and cannot promise air cover for ten days minimum. Ch.12 Justin Clements is summoned to King Shuriash's court to see if Nantukhtar arts can save his concubine who is undergoing a difficult birth. Clements has to perform a Caesarean section and hysterectomy. He finds Azzu-ena, a female physician, helping him, and begging him to train her. Ch.12 June, 9 AE The Republic of Nantucket First Marine Corps accompany King Shuriash's army to prevent a river crossing by the Assyrian army.They find the Assyrians crossing the river, and a reed swamp between the armies. Ken decides to run a causeway across the swamp, but Assyrian archers line up on the far side. Ken demonstrates the power of massed rifles by firing blind through the reeds and destroying the archers.Ch.13 July, 9 AE Ian accompanies King Shuriash to the Assyrian capital in RNAS Emancipator. He takes the opportunity to advise the King not to have Assyria razed to the ground, simply to tax it and set up a Parliament. Ken is at the northern border of Kar-Duniash with Mitanni, chasing Assyrians. The Assyrians are driven out of a fort. Ken enters and finds the inhabitants massacred except for a beautiful girl hanging by her thumbs in front of an Assyrian corpse. Ken cuts her down and learns that the corpse is the King of the Assyrians, killed by the girl, Raupasha, daughter of the former King of Mitanni. Ch.15 Tartessos April, 8 AE Isketerol, King of Tartessos, entertains his children with stories of his encounter with the Eagle and the Amurrukan people, and how he learned enough from them to take over as King in Tartessos after stealing a ship full of tools and books from Nantucket. He inspects a newly made musket and insists on the parts being interchangeable, before dismissing the machinist.Ch.2 March, 9 AE Melanterol son of Suaberon lands in Nantucket. Passing himself off as a native of the Summer Isle (Ireland), he soon befriends a Fiernan girl who works at the steel plant; Tartessan steel is full of bubbles, and Walker is no help... Ch.11 Girenas Expedition, North American Continent April, 8 AE Peter Girenas is on a hunt with Sue Chau and his dog Perks, when they are attacked by four unidentified tribesmen, whom they are forced to kill. Pete's mind is made up as he approaches base: The Islanders must find out what is in the continent. August, 8 AE Pete makes his way through Providence Base to the local fort and armoury, where he reports to his boss, Ranger Captain Bickford, and to his astonishment, Martha and Jared Cofflin. They discuss Pete's ideas for a continental survey; Jared refuses to allocate republic funds, but suggests that Pete should put his proposal before the Town Council and raise private funds, with Jared's open support.Ch.3 March, 9 AE Pete makes last-minute plans with his team: Sue Chau, Eddie Vergeraxsson of the Sun People, Henry Morris, Dekkomosu of the local Lekkansu tribe, and Jaditwara, a Fiernan woman. Ch.9 July, 9 AE The expedition is in the middle of what-would-be Missouri when they stumble upon a fight between two tribes, one losing badly, and the source of some tortured bodies they have come across. Pete decides to take sides and the group intervenes. In the ensuing fight, Henry, their doctor, is thrown from his horse and breaks a leg. He promises it will take a good three months to heal. Pete looks at his group and the thirty-odd tribe they have rescued and decides that this is probably a good place to prepare for winter. Ch.17 May, 10 AE The expedition leaves the cabins they have built, and the Cloud Shadow tribe. They also leave behind Henry, now married to Raven Feather, and Dekkomosu, but take with them Spring Indigo, Pete's second wife after Sue. Ch.23 Durban Base March, 9 AE Marian coaxes the exhausted Chamberlain into the bay of what-would-be Durban harbour and has the ship hauled over on shore to repair her, despite evidence that the Tartessans know of and have used the harbour. Ch.12 June, 9 AE Marian and Swindapa are hunting when they come across some Bushman hunters avoiding an elephant. They shoot the elephant and invite the hunters to the feast. They learn the hunters are also evading a Tartessan group.Ch.13 A pair of Tartessan ships obligingly appear outside the harbour, but Marian has guns there. Ch.14.